Adrian Chen

If you're one of the thousands of Americans who uses the Weight Watchers system to turn meals into joyless games of caloric Tetris, you probably noticed the rules have changed. No longer is an apple worth 2 points. Everything's weird!

A Weight Watchers overhaul has upended the lives of its 750,000 members, for whom the point system has ontological implications: A Burger King bacon double cheeseburger exists to them not as a food item made up of protein, carbs, etc., but as 12 points. Under the new scheme, the bacon double cheeseburger still is 12 points. But where Weight Watchers used to get 22 points a day, they now have 31 points a day. It's like Weight Watchers reached down their gullet and expanded every members' stomach! Fruit and veggies are now 0 points. Imagine if one day you woke up and apples no longer existed—this is how Weight Watchers feel right now.

Now chaos reigns. "If you're going to a party, for instance, and don't know what's going to be served there," one member told The Times, "I don't know what I can or can't enjoy as a treat because I'm not entirely clear, without taking a second to go into the ladies' room and go look up the point value on Weight Watchers mobile."

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May we suggest a simple point-based dietary system that can't be changed abruptly by a corporation—one you don't have to pay hundreds of dollars to take advantage of and has zero meetings per week? It's called calories. They're right there on the side of your SlimFast milkshake! The rules of calories are simple: Eat less of them. Hell, you can even eat only Twinkies under this system and still lose weight.